The sources of noise in a readback signal from a magnetic recording medium have been investigated and identified. One of those sources includes the irregularities and defects in the microstructure of the magnetic medium itself. For many years, the noise generated from this source has been thought, as with the noise generated from other identified sources, to be random and subject only to statistical analysis for its determination. The inventors herein have recently demonstrated that this noise component is instead deterministic, i.e. is permanent and repeatable, depending entirely on the transducer-medium position and on the magnetic history of the medium. As confirmed by experiments conducted by the inventors herein, when the medium has had no signal written on it and has been recorded only with DC fields, the observed readback signals are almost identical. The magnetic contribution to the readback signal under these conditions results from spatial variations in the medium's magnetization: magnetic domains, ripple, local fluctuations of the anisotropy field-and saturization magnetization. These local properties, in turn, are affected by the morphology and magnetic properties of the individual grains which make up the domain and which do not change after deposition. Hence, the noise from a nominally uniformly magnetized region measured at a fixed position on a magnetic medium is reproducible. As shown by the inventors herein, a magnetic medium may be DC saturated and its output then measured to determine its remanent state or remanent noise. The inventors have confirmed that this remanent noise is a function of the magnetic microstructure by comparing the remanent noise after a positive DC saturation with the remanent noise after a negative DC saturation. It has been found that these wave forms are virtual "mirror images" of each other thereby demonstrating a close correlation. Similarly, other methodologies were used to confirm that the remanent noise was determinative, repeatable, and related to the physical microstructure of the magnetic medium itself. Remanent noise arising from the permanent microstructure exhibits identifiable features characteristic of that permanent microstructure after practically any magnetic history. See Spatial Noise Phenomena of Longitudinal Magnetic Recording Media by Hoinville, Indeck and Muller, IEE Transactions on Magnetics, Volume 28, No. 6, November 1992, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The inventive technique disclosed and claimed herein relies upon the discovery that the microscopic structure of the magnetic medium itself is a permanent random arrangement of microfeatures and therefore deterministic. In other words, once fabricated, the recording medium's physical microstructure remains fixed for all conventional recording processes. In particulate media, the position and orientation of each particle does not change within the binder for any application of magnetic field; in thin film media, the microcrystalline orientations and grain boundaries of the film remain stationary during the record and reproduce processes. It is the magnetization within each of these fixed microfeatures that can be rotated or modified which forms the basis of the magnetic recording process. If a region of a magnetic medium is saturated in one direction by a large applied field, the remanent magnetization depends strongly on the micro-structure of the medium. This remanent state is deterministic for any point on the recording surface. Each particle or grain in the medium is hundreds to thousands of Angstroms in dimension. Due to their small size, a small region of the magnetic surface will contain a very large number of these physical entities. While the fabrication process normally includes efforts to align these particles, there is always some dispersion of individual orientations. The actual deviations will be unique to a region of the medium's surface making this orientation deterministic and making its effects susceptible to elimination. As can be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, noise reduction enables increase in storage capacity, increase in data rates, and eases the burden on transducers, medium, and system design and fabrication.
Although this discovery has been made by the inventors herein, noise reduction techniques based on this discovery have not been implemented. As this noise component of remanent noise is deterministic, it may be reliably repeated and measured at any particular point on a magnetic medium. Accordingly, the inventors have developed several techniques which take advantage of this fact for producing uncorrupted pre-recorded signals which may be played back by any playback device but which, when played back, have already been compensated for the remanent noise component. In other words, a magnetic recording may be recorded at the factory with a signal which has been first compensated for remanent noise such that as the signal is played back later the playback signal or read signal has the remanent noise component virtually eliminated. As the remanent noise component may very well be the most significant factor in noise emanating from pre-recorded magnetic media, this noise reduction technique may very well provide a dramatic reduction in noise with no required modification to the tremendous number of playback machines presently in the public's hands. This would include playback machines for the entertainment industry, etc. In a first embodiment of the invention, the remanent noise is first determined and the recording device compensates the original signal for the remanent noise before writing the compensated signal on the magnetic medium. These steps may be readily achieved with conventional recording transducers, as explained herein. Consequently, very little, if any, modification to existing recording equipment need be made to achieve these noise compensated recordings.
A second methodology will also create uncorrupted pre-recorded signals on magnetic medium. With this method, the signal is first written on the magnetic medium, the written signal is then read from the magnetic medium, this read signal is then compared with the original signal. The differences therebetween are determined to be noise, the greatest component of which is deterministic medium noise. The original signal is compensated to eliminate this noise before being recorded back at the same location on the magnetic medium. Thus, after the compensated signal has been recorded onto the magnetic medium, any other readback or playback machine would then produce a signal which has been compensated for remanent noise.
In still another embodiment of the present invention, the inventors have developed a methodology for compensating a signal read from a magnetic medium for remanent noise in real time. This methodology permits a playback device to be manufactured and sold which can play back pre-recorded magnetic medium which has not itself been compensated prior to recording, and produce a signal which is compensated on readback. With this method, the signal is first read from the magnetic medium, the remanent noise is determined for said magnetic medium, such as by saturating the magnetic medium and reading the remanent noise directly therefrom, and the signals are then compared to eliminate the noise from the original corrupted signal prior to use. As determining the remanent noise, as envisioned by the inventors, involves destroying the original recorded signal when the medium is saturated, another step to the method may well include re-recording either the original signal or its compensated counterpart. Thus, with this methodology, a playback device may take a pre-recorded magnetic medium whose signal has not been compensated, and transform it into a magnetic medium with a compensated signal recorded thereon such that further playbacks of the same magnetic medium would possibly not require compensation. With this methodology, if implemented in one alternative embodiment thereof, a user with a suitable playback machine may very well transform his entire collection of recorded media from non-compensated to compensated magnetic media. In other words, one may readily convert a collection of analog cassette tapes having original non-compensated signals thereon to a collection of analog cassette tapes having compensated signals recorded thereon which may then be played back by any playback device and produce what should be an enhanced signal because of the noise reduction.
In essence,.the present invention is elegantly simple and adapted for implementation by conventional recording transducers as are commonly found and used in virtually every read or read/write device presently utilized by the public at large. Such examples include cassette players, magneto-optic disc players, and VCRs. In its simplest implementation, a conventional recording transducer need merely DC saturate a specified portion of a magnetic medium, and then "read" or "play back" the remanent noise which remains. This remanent noise, which is an analog signal, may then be used to compensate an original signal, such as a musical program, dramatic reading, etc.
While the principal advantages and features of the invention have been described above, and a number of examples given, a greater understanding of the invention may be attained by referring to the drawings and the description of the preferred embodiment which follow.